Ikea to roll out second-hand marketplace across Europe

First Spain and Norway

For several years, IKEA customers have already been able to return their old furniture to the shop in exchange for a voucher of up to 50% of the new price. The second-hand items are then resold in the ‘second chance corner’. But what the home furnishings retailer has been testing since August in Oslo and Madrid is a bit different: on the ‘IKEA Preowned’ marketplace, customers sell second-hand products to each other. Just like on Vinted, eBay or Depop, for example.

So it is a so-called peer-to-peer platform. And it appears to be catching on: ‘We have decided to expand it from Madrid to Spain, and from Oslo to Norway. In a couple of years, we want to scale it up to all markets in Europe,’ Jesper Brodin, CEO of Ingka, Ikea’s largest franchisee, explains to Financial Times.

‘A movement in society’

While not giving financial details, the top executive pointed to high customer engagement: ‘Sometimes you have to go with the gut. This is a market and a movement in society, and if we would stay outside we couldn’t take part in it.’ According to him, IKEA has already taken several initiatives to make its offer more sustainable, but ‘only with Preowned have we found the value to compete with eBay or Depop.’

The platform works like many other second-hand marketplaces: users upload their own photos of their furniture or interior decorations and set the selling price. IKEA adds additional information such as dimensions and the original price via AI. The platform guarantees buyer protection. Sellers can be paid by bank transfer or voucher: in that case, IKEA adds another 15% to the sale price.

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